So much food has been eaten over the past few days I can’t even remember it all! This was the first Thanksgiving that my Mom hosted and she cooked all the food. We had a beautiful spread, starting with the appetizer table:

And then a few more tables of main meal dishes:

And even a table for sweet snacks:

Too much stuff! I had samples of everything, but I sat right in the sun so it’s hard to see…

For dessert we had several options as well, and I had tastes of a pumpkin roll and my Mom’s famous dessert.  

And my other meals over the last 2 days looked like various combinations of these foods over again- can’t be wasteful! And luckily I got to bring several things home with me- including all that mixed fruit, the pumpkin roll, and some other bits and pieces. My challenge is trying to eat everything that is perishable and buying as little as possible over the next 3 weeks until I’m back at home for the semester break!

What's left of our four Thanksgiving pies

I’ve heard lots of methods for controlling food intake. But I decided that Thanksgiving just wasn’t the day to even go there, so my daughter Lyanne (pron: LeeAnn) and I made four pies: apple, pecan, pumpkin and a new maple-pumpkin recipe Lyanne found on the Internet.

Mind you, only five adults, a 3-year-old and a 13-month-old attended our festivities. So you know there was pie abundance. Yesterday we had pie for lunch. And our afternoon snack.

Come dinner time, we decided “real food” was called for, so we left the remains of three pies on the kitchen island (more than half the pecan and about half the apple, plus the pumpkin in the photo above—we’d sent the other pumpkin pie home with Lyanne) and went to the local wings/burgers joint where Lyanne works. Then we walked the mall with the kids to prep them for a good night’s sleep.

When we got home, we discovered my dog, Finley (aka Lassie the Wonderdog), decided to help us in our calorie-control quest: Two of the pies were GONE. Plates licked clean. And the floor. Verdict: The dog ate it. (Where have we heard that one before??)

You might wonder what I was thinking by leaving the pies so readily available, and yet Finley has NEVER eaten anything off the counters before. So my only conclusion is that Finley, like me, possesses a pie-eating penchant. We are truly of one heart and mind.

But regardless of how close we are, as a precaution, Finley didn’t get to sleep in my room last night. 

• 1 lb. white chocolate (sometimes called “almond bark”)
• ½ cup peanut butter
• 3 cups Rice Krispies
• ½ cup salted Spanish peanuts (optional)

Melt white chocolate and peanut butter in double boiler over gently boiling water. Pour over Rice Krispies (add peanuts, if desired), stirring carefully. Drop by spoon on waxed paper. Note: The amount of peanut butter or Rice Krispies can be varied. Serves 10 – 12.

Sticking with the chocolate theme, today I am making chocolate mousse. It is an old recipe from one of the all time great cook books The Women’s Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook. It is such an easy recipe to pull together and it’s quick.

You Will Need
4 Eggs

125g Dark Cooking Choclate

1 cup of Cream

1 Punet of fresh Raspberries

Method

Take 4 beautiful eggs and separate them.

Beat the egg whites till soft peaks form and put aside.

Melt 125g dark cooking choc. Let it cool a little.

Beat 1 cup of cream till stiff.

Mix the egg yolks into the chocolate.
Then add the beaten cream.
Then gently stir in the egg whites.
Pour into 4 wine glasses (very eighties) or 4 ramekins, bowls, whatever and refrigerate.

Leave a couple of hours.

It’s yum straight from the fridge whilst standing at the door or for desert with a few raspberries.

What gets better than sushi and sundaes? Sushi and sundaes at Harrods, of course.

Tucked amidst Missoni and Vivienne Westwood, hidden beneath the Egyptian escalators, and a corridor away from the fragrant perfumery of London’s one-stop shop for everything luxurious lay Harrods Food Hall. And if you glide passed the signature teas, the truffles and petite cakes, you will hit a bar. Sushi, that is.

Bright orange salmon and plump scallops are a specialty. It is the freshest you can get in London, but definitely not the cheapest, so do not come hungry.

Once you are satiated enough, it is time for Morelli’s Gelato. Gelato sundaes–now that’s a first.

Served in funky martini bowls, each sundae is one-of-a-kind, with heaping scoops that range from hazelnut vanilla to banana caramel topped with homemade whipped cream. Each mouth-watering bite melts in your mouth. I admittedly gasped aloud after swallowing a spoonful of French vanilla gelato smothered in caramel with chunks of fresh banana. And who wouldn’t?

Most head to Harrods to drool over fashion. Instead, satisfy that hunger with the good stuff.

–

Harrods

87–135 Brompton Road
Knightsbridge
London, SW1X 7XL
United Kingdom

A Shetland confectioner wins its legal battle with retail giants Asda over the name of one of its flagship sweets…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: go shopping. The blog is also related to: gift shopping.

Mamàn is the pecan pie maven in the family, so with her out of the state for Thanksgiving, the dessert responsibility fell to Pops. He’s not much into baking, but he sure does LOVE to make ice cream. No matter what flavor he makes, it’s always astoundingly good, and this is the absolute best vanilla bean ice cream I’ve ever tasted. Thick and rich, almost marshmallow-y, and delicious over the fresh mango cobbler we made.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

makes about one quart

INGREDIENTS

7 large egg yolks

3/4 c. sugar

dash salt

1 vanilla bean (a great quality bean is the secret to a superlative ice cream)

2 c. half and half

1 1/2 c. heavy cream

RECIPE

1. Whisk egg yolks with sugar and salt in a large bowl; set aside. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Combine beans, seeds, half and half, and heavy cream in a large saucepan and bring just to a simmer.

2. Gradually whisk hot cream into the egg yolk mixture. Return it all to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon (don’t let it boil).

3. Strain through a sieve into a large bowl and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Pops got this recipe online somewhere, and it was pretty tasty. Both of us were happy with the fruit mixture, but felt that we’d alter the dough recipe if we ever made it again. The texture wasn’t stellar, and I found it a little too salty.

Fresh Mango Cobbler

serves 6 to 8

INGREDIENTS

2/3 c. plus 1/3 c. sugar

1 tbsp. cornstarch

1 c. water

3 c. sliced mangoes

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 1/2 tsp. butter

1 tbsp. sugar mixed with 1 tsp. cinnamon

1 c. flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3 tbsp. shortening

1/2 c. milk

RECIPE

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix 2/3 c. sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan, gradually stir in water, mangoes, and lemon juice. Heat, stirring well, and pour into 1 1/2 qt. baking dish. Dot with butter and sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar over the top.

2. Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture gets a mealy consistency. Stir in the milk and mix well.

3. Drop the dough mixture by spoonfuls onto the hot fruit. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

Today I have two recipes to share with you whilst I take a break from party preparations for this evening’s birthday party for my mum (she’s hit the big 50; although she’s still in denial about it).  I have finally graduated from soft foods to more normal foods but before I did that I made this delicious nutrient dense soup:

It was really easy to make; just take…

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp tumeric
2 tsps smoked paprika
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garilc, crushed
750ml veg stock
200g curly kale
1 red pepper, chopped
1 sweet potato, cubed

Heat the olive oil in a heavy based saucepan or casserole dish.  Add the onion and fry until softened, then add the garlic, spices, red pepper and sweet potato.  Stir together to cover the veg with the spices and release their flavour.  Add the veg stock, and simmer for 15 mins until the sweet potato is softened.  Slowly add the kale until it’s wilted a bit.  Leave the soup to cool,and  blend altogether until reached your desired consistency.  Reheat and serve, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.

If you thought that was easy, the next recipe is even easier.  I don’t know about you, but when I’m stressed I crave sweet things like nobody’s business, especially chocolate.  So I thought I should embrace this by making healthy sweet treats, and I included dates (the stress-relieving fruit).

There are loads of variations of these treats out there, and they go by different names.  You  may remember I posted about raw chocolate bombs a few weeks ago.  These are the same but are also called fudge babies by the likes of Chocolate-Covered Katie et al.  In mine I used 1 cup of almonds (soaked for 8 hours), 1 1/3 cup dates,  1/2 cup dried apricots, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 3 tbsp cocoa powder/cacoa powder.  Just put all the ingredients into your food processor and process away until the mixture resembles fudge.  At this point you will be able to roll them into balls, or mould into whatever shape you fancy.  I have taken photos of these but I’m staying with my parents and have forgotten to bring the connecting lead to upload the photos onto my laptop.  I’ll insert the images as soon as I get back.  They resemble my raw chocolate bombs anyway, in case you’re wondering.

photo by PetitPlat
visit her etsy store!

No, not on your face! What do you think this is, the state fair?! This isn’t a real cake, champ — it’s another mindblowing miniature by Stéphanie Kilgast, whose Flickrstream is now also full of tantalizing Christmas foods. Yum!

Letter J for Jellybeans, originally uploaded by Pink Sherbet Photography.

I absolutely love the alphabet food series by Pink Sherbet. Other highlights include U for Udon, H for Hotdogs, and E for Eggs. A for awesome!

Canadian Maple Syrup Cheese Tart

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for ignoring you. I’m sorry for avoiding you. I’m sorry. 

You are not just a pretty face. Underneath that beautiful golden layer, you are white, pure. Yet you are anything but. Evil, that’s what you are.

You stole my heart with your cheesiness and the light maple syrup undertones. You outshone the crunchy tart base you sat on. You made me forget the cheese-hater in me.

Nothing can move your heart though. Having sat in the freezer, your’s has hardened, firmed. Just like ice-cream.

You have turned me into a cheese tart convert. I really regret ignoring you before.

Forgive me, please?

I could almost kick myself in the face (if that was possible) for not buying more. 

Gimme gimme, gimme, gimme gimme more~

Anyway, did I mention that today was mummy’s growing-one-more-year-older (haha!) day? Yes, her birthday! This year, she made her own birthday cake but unfortunately, the first sponge was a failure. So, I convinced her to let me have it for my own “fun” purposes.

I took it, and crumbled it to pieces. Of course, I dumped the crumbs into a box. No, don’t be shocked. It’s all part of my “master plan”. Which was to turn them into… 

Truffles! And why not? Truffles have always been bakers’ way to salvage their failed cakes or extras. It’s a very simple process but I think it takes skill to coat the balls with a thin layer of chocolate only. I still have more to work on, though.

Form the cake crumbs, butter, sugar and raisins into balls and refrigerate. Some people add in rum too.

Melt your chocolate.

Get ready your coatings. There’s the standard cocoa powder which I find much easier to coat the balls with.

There’s chocolate sprinkles.

And for those who like an explosion of colours, there’s hundreds and thousands. But to make the colour noticeable, you will really need hundreds and thousands and hundred thousands. The chocolate can sometimes cover up the sprinkles, see?

When the balls are chilled for about an hour or so, they can then be dipped into the melted chocolate then rolled in the coating. You can use a satay stick to poke it then do the dipping and coating but I used my fingers! After doing so, refrigerate again for the chocolate to firm up before eating.

Tadaa~!

For mummy’s birthday lunch, my grandparents and my family went to Tampopo at Liang Court. We each ordered our own main dish and my father, who always orders too much, went on to order more side dishes.

This is just tofu with wagyu mince sauce but it costs more than $10 for such a small portion!

I believe this is deep fried tuna from the seasonal menu. I didn’t try this.

A grilled fish item from the seasonal menu as well.

My main course was a chirashi don with 11 kinds of fish.

Disappointing. Today’s sashimi weren’t fresh at all and the uni looks especially disgusting and gloopy. The rice was as good as usual, though. Slightly sweet and sticky.

We took a little walk in Medi-ya supermarket after lunch. There’s a Hokkaido fair going on but its a small scale one. Not like Isetan’s. Ooh, I can’t wait for next year’s Isetan Hokkaido fair! 

What’s a visit to Liang Court without Tampopo Deli? The rest of my family had a cream puff each…

While I had the matcha chiffon.

I love the cream puff. I really do. But I have been eating the same thing every time I come to Tampopo Deli. It’s getting boring. That’s why I decided on the matcha chiffon.

Tampopo Deli’s chiffons have a higher flour to liquid ratio, which makes them not as soft as say, Bengawan Solo’s pandan chiffon. This makes the cakes easier to frost. 

What’s surprising about this chiffon is that in the middle, there were no red beans. Instead, there were slices of red juicy strawberries. The red beans, however, were embedded in the the cake itself. The matcha taste was distinct and the whipped cream was uber milky. Me likey likey.

I was still quite full from lunch even when dinner time rolled around. So I decided to have a bowl of cereal! I missed it so much though I have only gone one day without it! I don’t think you need a picture on that, do you?

I feel like going to Patisserie Glace now to get more of their cheese tarts! I wonder what flavours should I get? 

sweet lollapalooza

My husband snapped this picture today with his Blackberry.  It is a sneak peek through the window of Sweet Lollapalooza, scheduled to open on Monday in Commerce Place.

All I can say is mmmmmmmmmmm.  Chocolate.  And what a fabulous creative name for a sweets business.  I hope the chocolates taste as good as they look!  (Since mwaddingham has a client in Commerce Place, I expect a steady stream of chocolates arriving home).

i chose 3 fun cookie recipes to bake today for the hosts of the 2 thanksgiving parties i am attending. of course i had to change them up a bit because i had some nice little goodies on hand.

-scharffen berger fine artisan dark chocolate
-candied lemons
-candied oranges
-caramel apple preserves
-dried cranberries

i started early with my usual rugelach recipe. the filling can be anything you want, so i made it out of the caramel apple preserves & dried cranberries, half of them with walnuts. this recipe takes awhile to make because of the dough & the chilling & building process.

then i turned my attention to orange shortbread cookies with chocolate chips. i have never made shortbread before. instead of the chips, i melted the chocolate i had & dipped one candied orange peel in it for each cookie & chilled it to firm the chocolate on top. they look really pretty.

the last one, lemon thins
was a chilled log type. it’s rolled into a tube with parchment & foil a couple hours, sliced thin & baked. i topped these off with candied lemons dipped in chocolate, dusted in powdered sugar & chilled.

i can see a theme here. fruit & chocolate with butter & sugar is good.

I feel like I have had some success this time! It is exciting!

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

Success had! I was a bit apprehensive about this to begin with; I’ve always looked at them but never made them because I am always apprehensive of things that are fried. I did see the option of baking them, which I may try next time. This time though I thought I would go the traditional route, I didn’t have the tubes to begin with so I went and bought some. I understand that we did not have to buy anything to complete these challenges, but I didn’t have a broom handle, and I’d actually wanted to make these for some time now, so I used it as a bit of an excuse.

I only got 1 size, not a good idea because I was a little disappointed with the size. Would’ve liked a smaller cannoli actually but the taste was good all the same. And, it looked good which is great for me after the past failures. The cannoli was nice and bubbly just like it was meant to be, I was so pleased with myself.

The dough was a bit stiff like others have commented on but I used my pasta roller to roll it out which I think helped. I only made two types both custard, one chocolate custard. I dipped them with walnuts after because I had some left over from a salad I’d been making for dinner that night. I seem to cater to the taste loves of the Husband a lot when given the opportunity. He’s not a fan of ricotta nor is he a lover of mascarpone so not quite traditional but it was delicious all the same.

It was a great challenge, I loved it, and I liked the challenge a lot. I plan to give a savoury a go sometime very soon. These are not a normal thing to be able to find here in Australia, at least not anywhere in my local area. I am aware that there is some places in the inner city area that sell them but you really don’t see them very often. So it was a lovely special treat.

And maybe Marlon Brando will be there by the fire

We’ll sit and talk of Hollywood and the good things there for hire

And the Astrodome and the first tepee

Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me

Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me

“Pocahontas” by Neil Young

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone has a day full of gorging, naps, booze, and football. Be safe and I will see ya’ll next week.

Ingredients:

Enough pie dough to make one shell
3 large eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
2/3 cup light corn syrup
¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons bourbon
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups pecans, toasted

Directions:

1.    Preheat oven to 350° F
2.    Put dough in pie tin
3.    In a large bowl, whisk eggs
4.    Add brown sugar and whisk
5.    Whisk in vanilla, corn syrup, butter, bourbon, and salt
6.    Fold in pecans
7.    Dump pecans and mix into pie crust
8.    Bake pie for 45-55 minutes until set in the center

Time just never stop for us, huh?

Vividly remembered 28 feb 2009, i flew from Singapore to Melbourne with Belle and Ying. Shortly after, we had out first urban life for 2009! 2 days ago, we had our final urban life for 2009!

I’m glad i was given the opportunity to show my loveee to my fellow urbies! Let’s the picture do the talking….

ULU11 Honouring Gift 2009

What’s inside the magical Jar?

♥ Loveee Surprise no. 1 - Chocolate melting moments sandwich with chocolate cream.

♥  Loveee Story: seriously, i’m so ignorant! i never understand why it is named “melting-moments” till i actually bake it! How hilarious right? It melts…. lolx. stop laughing at me, pls pls pls! *shy~ Honestly, it is challenging to bake this. I couldn’t under-bake, if not it will just melt… i couldn’t over-bake it too! If not, it will lose the “melting-texture” in your mouth! boo hoo hoo! Guess what? THEY LOVEEE IT! My heart melt~~~~~~~ ♥♥♥

♥ Loveee Surprise no.2 – Dark Chocolate Chips cookies

♥ Loveee Story: Confession time… i loveee Famous Amos Chocolate chips cookies. In the past, it really upset me how my cookies spread so wide out that it loses that thickness i-like-about-Famous-Amos-cookies! I’M SUPER happy cos i found the art of baking it! Sadly, i did over-bake to give it a abit harder and crunchy texture. i over did it! Well, i shall learn from my mistake! Still, i loveee it cos it has multi-texture! yum~

♥ Loveee Surprise no. 3 – Peanut butter biscuit (sadly, no picture!)

Another confession time… totally loveee peanut butter and i can never make up my mind whether it is smooth or crunchy! both are yum~ i can just scoop a heap tablespoon of peanut butter and start licking it like an ice-cream. Can u believe how i love to have a heap spoonful of peanut butter followed by nutella? Clearly, i had influence my lil sister to take up such SINFUL habit! Well, i have to put such horridly-sinful habit to a stop if not i’ll be crazy over-weight! Everything is under-control. wheeee~

♥♥♥

On top of all those beautiful full of loveee goodies, i made 2 entree-s and a dessert for potluck dinner.

♥ Fish Cake

*Crazily loveee by my urbies! i loveee it too!

♥ Loveee Story: As i was pan-frying the fish cakes, i couldn’t resist trying one after another. it tasted the best.. when it is fresh.

♥ Roasted Vegetable w/ indian curry-infused marinate

♥ Pandan layered caked with Kaya cream filling

♥Loveee Story: Kaya and pandan are such a must-have in malaysian and singaporean lifestyle, isn’t it? they are my absolute favorite! Remembering those good old days whereby my grandma would made her own kaya, the nonya’s kaya are brown in colour rather than green. i miss the taste of my grandma’s kaya. this cake made me miss home~~~

♥♥♥

It was the best urban life we had. The amount of sharing and laughters were comprehensibly heart-warming, the loveee was so powerful…

It is our final urban life of the year, but it is not the last in our life… Even though some of us have to leave for good, as long as our heart stays as ONE… it is never the last!

♥ Veron

photo by pillsburyrecipes

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it! Hope today brings you a nice assortment of pumpkin pies, warm biscuits, mashed potatoes, yam-n-marshmallow casseroles (I’m still on the fence about that one), turkey/tofurkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, blackberry pies, and whatever else you fancy.

xo
Sonya

What can I say? Blame my friend who sent me Dragon Age: Origins. Blame work, for asking me to do some overtime. And blame me, for being a self-proclaimed slacker.

Am enjoying Dragon Age so far, but I only started it yesterday and am taking it quite slow. It’s also the EU Welcome Back week for LotRO so I’m showing Spinks round some of Moria she hasn’t seen yet and Lothlorien too. Next week is the launch of Siege of Mirkwood and that will definitely take up some of my time, though considering many of my ’stable-ish’ group are away or starting new jobs/settling into new jobs, I’m sure I’ll be able to spare some time for Dragon Age. I’m definitely going to try to (for variety, if nothing else). I intend to add it to the very few computer games I’ve played through to the end.

In the meantime, I’ve been organising a sweet/chocolate-only Secret Santa for the kin in LotRO. I heartily recommend it, it wasn’t half as hard to organise as I thought. Get some interest, get people to send you their addresses, and then pair people up so that everyone gets sent something. I’ve set a £3 suggested spending limit, with posting that should take it to around £5, and I’ve tried to mix up the mainland EU/Scandinavia and UK players. I don’t normally get that involved in the social organising side. I used to do a bit of instance leading, but recently I’ve been more of a wallflower kin-wise. But while we were all discussing favourite local sweets, I thought it’d be a nice way of showing off one of the most important sides of ourselves (our favourite sweeties, of course). If it goes well, I’m going to suggest a chocolate-based one for Easter. And we’ll see how it goes. Do it! It’s been a lot less hassle than I thought.

More soon, honestly.

Time seems to fly when you buy a bunch of bananas.  It only seems like a couple of days ago that I brought home these ever-so-slightly green bananas.  Look at them now!  Perfect for banana bread!

I don’t know how many times I have made banana bread over the years, but for some reason, the ingredients and their proportions just never seem to stick in my head.  Thank goodness for having my cookbook handy!  I gathered everything up, then got to work.  First there were the dry ingredients into the first bowl — flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt.

On to the bananas!  I was pleased to see that they looked much better on the inside than the outside.  Nary even a bruise!  Well, for the time being anyway.  They soon met with the flat side of a wooden spoon and became banana mush.

To the banana mush, I added some sugar, cooking oil, and an egg.  That got mixed together until well incorporated, and then in went the dry ingredients.

Now, the recipe says that you should add the wet to the dry, but for some reason, I always put the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl than the wet, which makes me think I would overflow the smaller bowl trying to put it all in there.  So, the dry goes into the wet.  Whatever.  So long as you get the wet and the dry mixed together, it’s all good in the end.  Just don’t over mix it or your banana bread will get tough.

I poured the batter into a greased loaf pan, dropped the baby ever-s0-gently a couple of times to make sure all the air bubbles were out of it, and popped it into the oven for 53 minutes.  (The recipe says 50-55 minutes, so I went for the middle of the road.)  When a toothpick comes out clean, it’s time to take it out of the oven!

I turned the bread out of the pan after a couple of minutes and let it cool on a wire rack.  I couldn’t wait for it to cool entirely before cutting into it and giving it a nice pat of butter.  I swear that my family can smell the aromas from my kitchen from clear across the valley.  My parents just so happened to call and stop by tonight and, of course, took home some banana bread.  I was smart enough to at least keep some of the fruits of my labor this time!

Banana Quick Bread

(Taken from Better Homes & Gardens Limited Edition 2000 New Cook Book)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I use more like 1/2 teaspoon)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup mashed bananas (3 medium, but I usually add one extra, so I used 4)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cooking oil
• 1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel (optional, I omitted)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I omitted these too)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of an 8×4x2-inch loaf pan; set aside.  In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and 1/8 teaspoon salt.  Make a well in the center of dry mixture; set aside.
3. In another bowl, combine the egg, bananas, sugar, cooking oil, and, if desired, lemon peel.  Add egg mixture all at once to dry mixture.  Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy.)  Fold in nuts.
4. Spoon batter into the prepared pan.  Bake in a 350F oven 50-55 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Remove loaf from pan; cool on rack.  Wrap and store overnight before slicing (if you can.)